


Find Happiness Where You Can

by Person



Category: Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Gen, Mid-Canon, Music, Platonic Love, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-25
Updated: 2011-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-28 01:51:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/302418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Person/pseuds/Person
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Sheik can almost hate Link for still being capable of joy in their ruined world, but she loves him for it just as strongly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Find Happiness Where You Can

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crescent_gaia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crescent_gaia/gifts).



The hero was resting again within the Temple of Time.

She would never understand why he always chose to travel there, through the ReDead-infested town, whenever he needed a brief break. There were more comfortable places, surely; his own home was even open to him, and wouldn't he be more at ease there? Sheik knew why _she_ sought out the Temple when she needed a place to clear her head--it was the only spot in the entire city that was still almost exactly the way she remembered it from when she was a child, untainted by the evil that was ruining Hyrule--but he'd barely spent enough time in the castle town to grow attached to its memory the way that she would always be. Still, it was where he came, again and again.

It made her feel twitchy and short-tempered every time he showed up, though she hid it as best she could. She understood that his work was tiring, and that he'd been sleeping for years instead of getting any chance to train himself up to face threats which were so much stronger than the ones he'd beaten as a child. She understood that he both needed and _deserved_ a chance to rest every now and then. But Hyrule didn't have _time_ for that. The land had already waited in agony for seven years just for him to reappear, its people so miserable that many of them had forgotten that there even was a better way to be. Now that he'd finally been released from the Sacred Realm it shouldn't need to wait any longer; he should be using every bit of strength within him to make things right, not frequently stopping in to hang around doing nothing.

When he pulled out the ocarina she had hope that he was going to transport himself back to the temple he was only halfway through exploring, but instead he piped out a few soft, seemingly random, notes then grinned at he and said, "Hey, why don't you join me on your harp, Sheik? You only play with me when you're teaching me a new song, don't you think we should just do it for fun sometimes?"

For a moment she honestly felt as if she hated him, this smiling hero who was so lucky that he could still even remember _how_ to do things just for fun when the rest of the world had forgotten. She wasn't sure that she'd ever even really known. Even when she was Zelda she hadn't been able to things just because she wanted to, because she thought they'd make her happy; she had been a princess and needed to act accordingly. Now, after seven long years of hiding and training, any skill she'd had at it had been beaten straight out of her. How dare he look at her with eyes that were still so bright even in their broken world and speak of fun?

But even as she hated him, she felt herself loving him tremendously for it as well. _That_ was exactly what they were trying so hard to restore to the world, the simple joy of living that Ganondorf had striped away from everyone. Even if they couldn't entirely heal the land, it would be enough just to help the people find their happiness again. And she wanted that, wanted everything that he held within his smile, desperately.

And maybe, she thought, feeling a twinge of guilt as she looked at him still waiting for her answer with the ocarina held almost to his mouth, maybe the way to bring it back wasn't just to wait for him to defeat Ganondorf before even trying. Maybe the right first step was just to follow his lead, to try and find something, no matter how small, worth being happy over in spite of everything then try to share it with others.

She raised her harp, strumming it once to make sure all the strings were in tune, and gave him a small nod. "Very well, Hero of Time, but you'll need to be the one teaching me a melody this time. It has been years since I last played for entertainment."

"That's fair!" he said, his smile growing even wider. "I'll start slowly until you pick it up, alright? Coming through town on the way here always makes me think of this one."

He began to play, and though Sheik had been pushing herself to have fun she felt tears that she'd thought had dried up years ago start stinging at her eyes when she recognized the song he chose to play. Even after so long it didn't take her more than three notes to realize what the song was. She'd heard it often enough in her childhood; every time she'd been allowed to visit the market as a child some street musician or another seemed to be playing that same bouncing tune.

The Temple was the only place in the entire city that was still almost the way she remembered it. But when she closed her eyes to listen to his playing a little more closely it almost felt like the last seven years had just been a bad dream she'd had after dozing off while waiting for Impa to finish her shopping, safe in world where a princess could sit defenseless in a crowd without any fear of being attacked, and that when she opened her eyes she'd be able to run back to the castle where her father and her life would both be waiting for her. Maybe the sweet little forest boy would even sneak into the castle again someday soon, and she could tell him all about the dream she'd had where he'd been a hero and never even recognized her under the man she'd disguised herself as.

The tight feeling in her chest and the burning in her eyes might not have been the joy she'd been trying to reclaim, but as she raised her fingers to her harp again and began to join in she thought that maybe they could be a type of happiness too.

**Author's Note:**

> Just as a bonus for anyone who's reading this but hasn't played the game in long enough that they've forgotten the song in question, [you can listen to the market theme here.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzthVVvvwJM&feature=related) (Someone else's upload, don't worry I'm not breaking yuletide anonymity with the link! *g*)


End file.
